Around the dioceses
Catholic educators recognised in Qld TEACHX Awards
Two Catholic school educators were recognised in the TEACHX Awards that celebrate the achievements of inspiring teachers from schools and early childhood education and care services across Queensland.
Ariel Hsu-Chia Chen (left) from St James College, a school in the Edmund Rice tradition in Brisbane, won the 'Excellence in Beginning to Teach Award' for challenging the stereotypes about what children can and can’t learn if they have a learning difficulty or disability and how languages have sometimes been taught.
Students are achieving astonishing results in Ariel's Chinese Language classes at St James where 62 per cent of the students, who come from over 50 different cultural backgrounds, speak English as an additional language.
“We don’t often see people with disabilities speak a foreign language, but we make it happen here,” Ariel said. “It doesn’t matter where you are from, what kind of challenge you have – you can succeed in my classroom. Education is the one thing that changes your life.”
Elyse Johnston (right) from St Laurence’s College, Brisbane, which is also a school in the Edmund Rice tradition, won the 'Outstanding Contribution to School Community Award' for leading the array of extra-curricular activities and assessments which see students at the all-boys school serve their local, state and international communities.
Elyse's idea for students to paint for charity in a new ‘Art in Practice’ subject was the catalyst for a much-loved, school-wide event, which raises money and provides food for charity.
“We would get someone from the community to come in and talk to the students about what their organisation does and why they do it. Then, the students would choose an organisation they aligned with and create an artwork for it,” Ms Johnston said.
“Then we thought, ‘No, this is bigger than just to show in class’, so I spoke to other Arts areas and we put on our first exhibition, which was artwork and performances. Since then, it has also included music, so we have school bands play, and this year we have Visual Art and Film and TV joining the line-up as well, which is really exciting.”
Elyse is currently co-facilitating a student-led Edmund Rice Beyond Borders project, which has connected ‘Lauries’ students online with pupils at St Patrick’s College in COVID-ravaged India, among many other initiatives.
Ariel and Elyse both received a $5,000 prize for professional development.